Design and development of manually-operated melon seed sheller for small scale melon processing

Abstract

The drudgery involved in the customary method of melon seed shelling has discouraged the mass production and commercialization of the crop and this have necessitated the development and evaluation of mechanized methods of melon seed shelling. This operation is done by machines whose operations are manual and motorized. This is in order to meet the domestic, commercial and industrial requirement of melon for food processing. A manually operated melon seed Sheller was developed and evaluated in this study. It consists of a hopper, the shelling chamber (consist of a rotating inner vanned drum and a fixed cylindrical ring), and an outlet unit. The developed machine has a throughput capacity of 387 kg/h, shelling efficiency of 90% and seed damage value of 20% at an average seed moisture content of 18.37%. Results obtained during the performance evaluation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) at P≤0.05 significance level showed that the machine can efficiently shell melon seeds and that seed moisture contents have most significant effect on the performance indicators than the drum speed of the shelling machine. Also, this melon shelling technology can effectively take care of the challenges posed by erratic power supply and the high cost of gasoline in developing countries, providing employment for small and medium scale farmers and food processors.